In 2008, the news broke that Universal Pictures had tapped Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lone Ranger director Gore Verbinski to helm a big-screen adaptation of BioShock.
John Logan (Skyfall) penned the screenplay for what Verbinski envisoned as a $200 million R-rated movie. Spending that much on a non-PG-13 blockbuster was unheard of at the time, and Watchmen's box office struggles led to Universal requesting that the filmmaker slash the budget to a far more reasonable $80 million.
With that, he stepped out of the director's chair and passed the mantle to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later). The plug was eventually pulled in 2010, and after sporadic updates, The Hunger Games and The Long Walk director Francis Lawrence is now attached to direct a BioShock feature for Netflix.
During a recent Reddit AMA for Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, Verbinski reflected on what might have been with his take on the beloved video game property.
"I loved this project when we were getting close to making it at Universal," he wrote. "I was going to dive deeply into the Oedipal aspect and definitely keep it hard R with the Little Sisters, and the 'choices' the protagonist makes...and the consequences. I had worked out a way with writer John Logan to have both endings and I was looking forward to bringing that to the big screen and really f***ing with people’s heads."
"Had some great designs for the Big Daddies and the entire underwater demented art-deco aesthetic," Verbinski added. "Every year I hear something about the project, but I’m not sure any studio is quite willing to go where I was headed."
BioShock is a shooter unlike any you've ever played, loaded with weapons and tactics never seen. You will have a complete arsenal at your disposal from simple revolvers to grenade launchers and chemical throwers, but you will also be forced to genetically modify your DNA to create an even more deadly weapon: you.
The game follows Jack, who discovers the underwater city of Rapture, built by business magnate Andrew Ryan as an isolated utopia. The discovery of ADAM, a genetic material which grants superhuman powers, initiated the city's turbulent decline, and while attempting to escape Rapture, players have to fight its mutated and mechanical denizens.
Last year, producer Roy Lee said, "Netflix wants us to keep everything under wraps. But it's definitely going to be based on the first 'BioShock' game."
A few months before that, Lawrence had explained, "It's a tricky adaptation, so there's lots of things to figure out and to get right. There's regime changes at Netflix, and so things stall out and get re-energized and stall out and get re-energized, and I think we're in a pretty good place, honestly."
Stay tuned for updates on BioShock as we have them.